Friday, March 15, 2024

The Yellow Umbrella

"The Yellow Umbrella," oil on panel, 11x14, private collection

"The Yellow Umbrella" is a studio work exploring very limited use of color in a near-monotone painting. The street view is toward the New York Stock Exchange building. A vending cart stands in shadow but a ray of light from somewhere illuminates the yellow of one of its umbrellas. This was sold many years ago.

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Winter Watercolor

"January, Druid Hill Creek," wc/ink postcard
As anyone who reads these postings knows, most of my watercolors are small, relatively loose, and washy. A lot are enhanced with ink. And sometimes work that I'd forgotten surfaces after being misplaced. 

This little watercolor was done from my studio window using a very limited palette--ochre and umber with touches here and there of cobalt blue. This painting is more realistic than many of my creek studies because more of the trees are included, even the very near huge cottonwood that I usually edit out of the picture.
 

Friday, March 08, 2024

Along the Bluff

Spring is coming very soon now, especially with the warming temperatures of climate change. Bigger studio works, based on references and experiences last fall, have come into being. This one is the largest of all at 18x36. It's the completion of a study started last October of changing foliage, land formations and the Middle Raccoon River. 

A few months back I posted the study of the same area, although that work is considerably smaller. This one shows the trees and undergrowth just as the autumn season was starting to produce bright, saturated color. The painting posted previously is about the left half of the scene you see below. This one will be available via my website in the next few days.

"Along the Bluff," oil on canvas


Tuesday, March 05, 2024

Winter Casein

"Winter on the Creek," casein on panel, 6x8
Although I'm primarily an oil painter, I've done work in quite a few different media--digital, watercolor, pen an ink, and casein. Casein is actually a casein-oil emulsion paint that's available in tubes, like oils. It has a nice creamy consistency, dries like lightning and becomes waterproof afterward. For some illustrators it was an important tool before the advent of acrylic paint in the 1960s. 

This particular painting is yet another of my views of Druid Hill Creek, looking north. I changed the point of view slightly, but this was finished in late winter when the skies had cleared after a light snow.
 

Friday, March 01, 2024

The Seasons Change

 

These two watercolor sketches, done this time of year a while back, show how the advancing season used to look. There was snow but despite the cold weather the colors of the trees and undergrowth along the lake seemed to absorb sunlight, their colors becoming warmer, more golden. This year the snow fled weeks ago and the temperature today, March 1, is in the middle 50s F.   (Click to enlarge each image.)

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

February Warmth

Early spring-like weather feels good in an ominous sort of way. The warmth of the past few days and actually, the whole winter, is disquieting--it is still February after all, but the weather is more like the end of March.

"Last Scraps of Snow," wc/ink on paper

A few years ago   March was still relatively cold, and snow persisted in the shadows, and the grasses and spring bulbs still slept below the frozen ground. A 2019 watercolor shows it above. But this year winter seems to have petered out, so that high temperatures have ranged in the 50s (F) and lows have been barely below freezing for the most part. My gardens have responded with bulbs reaching 3-3 inches in height and the grasses are going green already. 

Global climate change has arrived.



Friday, February 23, 2024

Relief for the Eyes

"Outside the River House," oil on panel, 11x14
The thing about the winter months is how colors fade from dull to muted to nearly grey in some places. Trees become grey clouds against pewter skies. Water turns dark and coffee-like. Grasses become sallow yellow-greys. 

So this oil, begun last fall and put aside for a few months might relieve some of the monotony of winter. It began as a study of a tree at Whiterock but eventually became somewhat different.